WWII author Rick Atkinson to speak at Bijou May 19

For 14 years nationally acclaimed author Rick Atkinson chased the ghosts of World War II across the remnants of ruined battlefields, traveling thousands of miles on land, crossing and re-crossing oceans in search of the story of America in its finest hours.

Atkinson, the former Washington Post journalist and three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and military historian, combed through mountains of military data and history and tromped the fields of historical battlegrounds to complete his epic Liberation Trilogy — the story of World War II in three volumes: “An Army at Dawn,” “Day of Battle,” and the just-released “The Guns at Last Light.”

Atkinson will be in Knoxville Sunday, May 19, for a presentation and book signing at the Bijou Theatre, just four days after the book hits stores nationwide.The last volume, “The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945,” (Henry Holt) completes Atkinson’s trilogy, which totals almost 3,000 pages.